ANTIOCH — School board members recently took the highly unusual step of publicly reprimanding a fellow trustee for overstepping her bounds by pressuring a couple of district employees to violate board policy.

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Antioch Unified School District trustees voted 3-2 to censure Trustee Debra Vinson for assuming an administrative role by instructing the employees to transfer an eighth-grader to Orchard Park School, effectively ignoring a ban the board has placed on shifting students to the already overcrowded campus.

Vinson and Trustee Crystal Sawyer-White cast the dissenting votes.

In another split vote, the school board also approved a letter that last month it had directed board President Walter Ruehlig to draft telling Vinson to direct all her questions and requests for information to the superintendent for the next six months.

Moreover, she may not discuss district business with employees without the superintendent’s permission.

Board members instructed Ruehlig to send administrators a letter as well informing them that they should not respond to requests from Vinson but instead forward them to the superintendent.

The actions stem from complaints that two employees made against Vinson, saying she had pressured them to approve an intradistrict transfer to the Orchard Park campus.

A law firm’s investigation into the accusations concluded that Vinson flouted district rules that prohibit trustees from taking it upon themselves to give an employee instructions. She should have presented her request to the entire board, which then would decide whether to direct the superintendent to have it carried out, the attorney wrote in her findings.

Board members learn about the limits of their authority soon after they are elected, when they attend a three-day training organized by the California School Boards Association. Although the seminar is optional, Ruehlig said not only brand-new trustees but everyone on the board typically attends.

He noted that Vinson has attended three of those annual conferences as well as a weekend of CSBA training that focused on how to govern effectively.

In addition, Ruehlig said she was on the school board when Antioch Unified hired a consultant to provide four additional training sessions for board members, which included an explanation of their roles.

Investigating the complaints against Vinson has come at a cost — the district had incurred $29,619 in legal fees as of Aug. 31, Ruehlig said.

That figure includes invoices from an attorney the district brought in after receiving its first complaint that Vinson had denigrated an employee in an unrelated incident last year.

Meanwhile, the first-term board member continues to insist that she has done nothing wrong.

“I did not exert any form of authority … there were no demands to put a student anywhere,” Vinson said, noting that she only asked — not ordered — employees to help a mother transfer her child to another campus. “I have not overstepped any boundaries.”

Although she knew that Orchard Park isn’t supposed to accept transfer students according to board policy, Vinson says the school has made exceptions.

Vinson also asserts that she initially forwarded the parent’s request to Superintendent Stephanie Anello, who suggested that she contact another administrator about the situation.

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In retrospect, Vinson says she should have told Anello to handle it herself.

“That’s really what should happen. She should be following up on this issue,” she said.

Anello refutes Vinson’s account, however, saying she indicated that she would ask the administrator who handles transfers to contact Vinson — not the other way around.

Anello also emphasized that she never told Vinson to give that employee instructions.

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